The first three pages I drew in Berlin, but while I was there I spent most of my time soaking up the history and culture and enjoying walking around and visiting museums and galleries. I took photos to document everything I visited. I then drew from these photos, creating little characters, trying to portray the powerful emotions of so many places I visited through surreal and abstract characters and figures. I drew from a lot of statues from the Alte Nationale and the Sammlung Scharf-Gerstenberg, with the atmosphere of Berlin in the back of my mind. Towards the end, I started to use my watercolours, which led to my watercolour paintings where I started to look at the whole environment rather than just abstract figures.
I want my drawings to be able to convey meaning and emotion, often they are quite abstract but with some text could convey these things. I enjoy letting my pen be free, enjoying the lines as I draw them. I really enjoyed using pro markers, the way they bleed and the colours layer. Then with guide of the ink that bled through and created patterns and dots, I drew drawings on the next page. These drawings are more abstract and the lines and shapes merge a little more, with the exciting addition of colour.
Side note: I also really enjoy how these scans have captured my hands, creating movement and a feeling that you are looking at the pages of a real sketchbook. I didn’t want to put them all on a big white digital page, because I quite like that I chose a small sketchbook to start this project in and didn’t want the physical quality to be completely lost.
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